An accidental and timely discovery in Robert Hendrickson's Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins (Checkmark Books, 1997)

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"One very rarely hears this word today, but in the 19th century it was a common Americanism for "a pretentious boaster."

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"The word is probably a fanciful formation coined by some folk poet who liked its appropriate sound; it is first recorded in 1862."

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"A Georgia editor defined a snollygoster as a "fellow who wants office regardless of party, platform or principles, and who, whenever he wins, gets there by the sheer force of monumental talknophical assumacy."